


No Kidding

by telm_393



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Repression, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-15 07:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21249572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/pseuds/telm_393
Summary: While staying at Ben's house during Eddie's recovery, Eddie and Richie try to confess something to each other. The problem is that neither of them can bring themselves to admit that there’s anything to confess.





	No Kidding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darlingargents](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/gifts).

> So I saw "mutually unrequited" and "mutual pining" in your likes, and...I went hard on them. I hope you enjoy.

Eddie is sitting at Ben's dining room table, Richie is sitting across from him, it’s way too early to be awake, and Eddie doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t even remember waking up, though he remembers wandering downstairs and seeing Richie parked at the table for some goddamn reason, remembers Richie’s tired gesture inviting him to come sit. Eddie didn’t even think before taking the invitation, gravitating towards Richie like he's noticed he often does, much to his chagrin.

But now Eddie’s lost, because Richie isn’t talking, just staring at him with an intensity that makes Eddie feel deeply awkward. Eddie could make a joke to break the ice, but instead he decides to look down and study the tabletop to mitigate the feeling of Richie’s eyes on him. Eddie’s entire body feels stiff and cold, like a corpse, but that’s not new. He was used to feeling that way even before he actually died on the operating table like, what? Twice? It was twice, he knows it was twice.

It’s incredible that he lived through that and somehow still feels like he’s going to die pretty much all the time, like something new and exciting is coming down the pipe to fuck with him. He thinks getting shish-kebabed must’ve given him some kind of unknown illness. The others say no, he was cleared when he left the hospital, but how the fuck would an unknown illness show up in a screening?

Eddie doesn't mention any of that to Richie, but he doesn't pretend that he's not still fixated on his near death, because he thinks he has the right to be, and being here with Richie reminds him that, “My last words were almost ‘I fucked your mom.’”

Okay, yes, maybe Eddie’s still a little hung up on that. Maybe he's extra hung up on that when he's around Richie. It's not important. It was just a really stupid thing to say, and he doesn’t know why it seemed right at the time. If it even seemed right at the time, which it didn't. He knows that there was something else he wanted to say when he looked into Richie’s eyes, but now he can’t seem to grasp it. Or maybe he can, and would rather not. Or maybe the unknown illness is making him misremember things.

Richie snorts. “Yeah,” he agrees, because of course he agrees. If there’s one thing they don’t argue about it’s the details of that one time that Eddie almost died. At least not before Eddie fell unconscious. After that, all bets are off.

(Eddie spends a lot of time wondering what Richie said while Eddie couldn’t hear him. A lot of time imagining what Richie might’ve said.

Or maybe fantasizing about it. It’s fantasizing if the things you imagine make you feel good, right? Whatever.)

Eddie and Richie sink back into silence, and it’s so fucking uncomfortable it's insane, especially since Eddie knows for a fact that he’s comfortable with Richie. He remembers shoving his way into a hammock and settling besides a familiar warm body, a body more familiar than his own in some ways, because when he looked in the mirror he always had a brief, panicked moment where he wondered who the fuck _that _was and what was wrong with him, but he never felt that way when he looked at Richie. Or his other friends.

(Current situation notwithstanding, Eddie knows for a fact that he’s still comfortable with Richie, just like he still gets that _oh fuck what the fuck is that get it away from me _feeling when he looks in the mirror, only more so.

It’s just that there’s a certain element to how comfortable he is with Richie that he’s _not _comfortable with.)

“The last thing I said to you,” Eddie says slowly, carefully not putting emphasis on the _you _because emphasis would make it too emotionally charged, “was almost a ‘your mom’ joke.”

“Yeah, dude,” Richie says after a moment of hesitation. “It was almost the last thing you said, period.”

“I don’t know what I was trying to do,” Eddie admits, and he feels like he’s angling for something. _Meet me in the middle, Richie. Please?_

“Trying to lighten the mood while you’re dying _did _seem more like a me thing.”

“I wish I’d said something else to you,” Eddie mutters, still staring at the table. Richie’s tapping his fingers on it. Eddie wants to reach out and cover Richie’s hand with his. Not because the tapping is annoying, though it is. He just wants to touch him.

(He wasn't afraid when it happened, just kind of...sad. That he wouldn't have the chance to be the person he could be after killing Pennywise. But he knew he was going to die, and though he wasn't okay with it, he was resigned to it. He knew, as he looked into Richie's eyes and all the things he'd been remembering about who Richie was to him came flooding back, heavy with meaning, that there was only one more thing he'd ever say and he had to make it count. So obviously he said _I__ fucked your mom, _because apparently not even imminent death can cure stupidity.)

“What?” Richie asks, hushed, and he sounds either wary or hopeful. Eddie thinks that the two emotions are roughly equivalent.

“I don’t know,” Eddie responds, not sure what he’s trying to say now or what he actually wishes he’d said then. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to be sure.

“I wanted you to say something different,” Richie offers. His voice is quiet. Vulnerable. It makes Eddie want to touch him more, but also Eddie still can’t even bring himself to actually look at Richie, too afraid he’ll feel the urge to kiss him and too afraid of what that would make him. So he’s having a lot of conflicting emotions right now.

(Because apparently not even near-death can cure decades of repression.)

Eddie feels weird. He’s having a hard time breathing. Maybe his injury is getting infected. Maybe he’s having a heart attack. Maybe it’s the asthma he thinks he might have after all. Maybe it’s the unknown illness, which could mimic asthma.

Maybe it’s that he got stabbed in the fucking chest.

Maybe it just hurts to be alive.

“What’d you want me to say?” Eddie asks, one of those little bursts of bravery that he is somehow still capable of, even though lately he’s constantly afraid that he’s used up his bravery quota for the rest of his life.

Richie’s quiet for a long time, and Eddie hates these moments of tension, this feeling that they’re both desperately looking for something from each other but don’t know what, exactly, it is.

(Except they do know. Both of them do. Or at least Eddie’s pretty sure they both know, but he’s not going to mention it until he’s one hundred percent sure.

So, never.)

“I wanted you to tell me…” Richie starts, and Eddie deflates in advance. Richie’s voice is heavy with resignation, and it tells Eddie that this isn’t going to be the conversation either of them hoped it would be, even before Richie finishes his sentence with, “…that you accepted that I fucked your mom.”

Richie says the words in a monotone, not even trying to be funny, and Eddie watches Richie’s fingers tap away against the table and thinks Richie’s probably watching him, but he doesn’t look up to make sure. He doesn’t have to be looking at Richie to know Richie’s not smiling, because there's nothing to smile about. Neither of them are brave enough to say what they feel. Not now, maybe not ever.

“For a comedian,” Eddie says, too sad to be pissed off, “you're really fucking bad at reading the room.”

Richie lets out a shaky laugh, and then the silence is back.

Maybe someday one of them will break it.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to assume that eventually they get their shit together and, like, take their shirts off and kiss.


End file.
